167
The RAM crisis is resurrecting DDR4 memory and motherboard production as hardware cycle reverses - CPU, GPU, and RAM production are going back in time, for consumers anyway (www.techspot.com)
submitted 3 months ago by to c/pcgaming@lemmy.ca
41 comments fedilink hide all child comments
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] 2 points 3 months ago (14 children)

Can someone that explain this to me? Why are companies choosing to make older parts available again instead of just making the new shit?

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • hideshow 14 child comments
    •
  • [–] 7 points 3 months ago

    The foundries still have the process in place for making DDR4, so since there's demand they will keep making the product. It costs money to replace the machines in the facility to switch it to ddr5 or hbm, so the math only makes sense for a little while longer.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • [–] 4 points 3 months ago (2 children)

    Because the factories are already set up to make DDR4. Retooling to make DDR5 will cost a lot of money and take a lot of downtime for which the factory isn't making anything. So the companies are extending the life cycle of the DDR4 production lines, without needing to upgrade things or retrain workers. As long as people are buying it, then there's money to be made by staying open.

    It's like being the burger restaurant next to the steak restaurant when the line for the steak restaurant is 3 hours long. You'll get a lot of spillover from people who don't want to wait, and you can benefit from that without necessarily turning into a steak restaurant yourself.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
    •
  • [–] 2 points 3 months ago (1 child)

    Wrong, memory companies have moved on to DDR5, they need to retool back yo to reproduce DDR4. The only problem is the semi fabs sold out of the ddr5 chips to AI companies for their builds.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 1 child comment
    •
  • [–] 0 points 3 months ago

    Do you mean the actual packaging of silicon dies and putting them into DIMMs? Yeah, they had to revert back, but that's because a lot of the memory silicon that's only good for DDR4 never shut down, and any silicon memory that is good for DDR5 is also getting claimed up for non-DIMM memory (e.g., memory packaged with logic chips rather than sitting on its own package in a DIMM or even soldered to the board).

    Basically, previous generations' silicon fabrication tech is still going, and there are still buyers of that last generation product.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • [–] 3 points 3 months ago (5 children)

    Because if they just make more of the new stuff then the AI companies will just increase their order size and take it all. Their greed knows no bounds

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 5 child comments
    •
  • [–] 3 points 3 months ago (4 children)

    That sounds like an incentive for the manufacturers to do it, so is not an explanation.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 4 child comments
    •
  • [–] 1 point 3 months ago (3 children)

    Not if they know it is a bubble that will pop and then they are holding the bag on all of that capex spent on ramping up the production

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 3 child comments
    •
  • [–] 2 points 3 months ago (2 children)

    That is not consistent with what the person above said. They contended that manufacturers don't want to produce DDR5 "because AI companies will buy it all". I'm saying that is an incentive to produce DDR5; manufacturers don't particularly care who buys their products.

    You say "it's a bubble that will pop" and that's a valid explanation for the behaviour, but it's a different explanation than the OP's: you're not saying "yeah, they don't wanna do it because they don't wanna sell to AI companies" you're saying, "they don't wanna do it because the demand isn't robust".

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
    •
  • [–] 2 points 3 months ago

    AI is taking all the supply for the latest and greatest. All the production for DDR4 based stuff probably can't do DDR5, so why not have it keep pumping out DDR4? It takes a LONG time to build out fabs for the latest and greatest so it's not like they can switch to DDR5 stuff overnight.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent